Today is Wednesday the 10th. We are continueing with our presentations and Mr. Bruns has dropped us with a very good bombshell. Mr. Bruns will be gone tomorrow for an appointment with his wife so we will be watching a movie tomorrow and we will not be presenting. To top t off, we only have 30 minute classes tomorrow and get a two hour early out! this just keeps getting better and better.
The next group to go was France. France was one of the worlds major powers. France didn't fair so well in WW2. General Charles de Gaulle was the leader of the Free French Forces. Urged his fellow Frenchmen to resist the Germans. The Free French Forces was an organization that was set up to fight off of the oppressive Germans. They had to set up in Great Brittain because the Germans had taken over all of France within a month.
The Vichy government was the government in France that Hitler allowed to control France. The Vichy was most famous for hunting down French Jews and turning them over the Germany. Right before the start of the War, Hitler asked to take over Austria. Everyone figured that this was alright. It was nothing to go to war over, and everyone knew that Austria had previously asked to annex itself with Germany.
Hitler used this to further his goals to take more and more European land. Hitler was able to get a lot of land without any repercussions. He knew that Great Brittain and France did not want to go to war and would negoitiate with him. After France was liberated from the Germans, they were struck with poverty and destruction. Much of the landscape was completely ravaged and it took years for them to rebuild their once great cities.
Their President, incidentally Charles de Gaulle, was set on getting France back onto their feet. They needed to rebuild their infrastructure and keep order. France went into World War 2 imposing as a strong World Power. France was actually very weak and fell quickly to Germany which had developed into an extremely strong world power.
The French's military strategy was to build up their defence. They built a large concrete barrier along the border of France to Italy. The wall was equipped with machine guns, trains, and hospitals, all of which would build on the imposing structure of the wall. Hitler simply cut through right where the wall stopped. France lost a lot of rep. for making such a tactiacal mistake. They worked so hard on building up their defenses that they did next to nothing to build up their offense... idiots.
France may have once been a strong and major power in the world, but World War 2 showed the world just how much luster the French had lost. France will probably only continue to survive through their deep cultural heritage and should probably step it up a bit.
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